Nick Briz’s T0p 5

This is this second edition of T0p5: a DINCuratorial series featuring guest participants that curate five embeddable internet videos. There are no guidelines for their selections, other than participants are encouraged to reflect upon their choices in however many words they deem necessary.

Today, our curator is Nick Briz, a Chicago-based new media artist, curator, thinker, educator, and organizer. More on Nick:

I’m a new-media artist/writer/thinker/educator/organizer living and working in Chicago, IL. I am co-organizer and co-founder of GLI.TC/H, an international noise and [dirty] new-media festival/conference/gathering. I also co-organize Upgrade!Chicago, a monthly art and technology series held at the Nightingale Theater. As an educator I’ve developed and taught courses on new-media art, Internet art + culture[s], remix art + culture[s] and experimental music. I develop digital/web/interactive projects for various clients with Branger_Briz. My work has been exhibited at festivals and galleries around the world including the FILE Media Arts Festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the Sydney Underground Film Festival, the European Media Arts Festival in Osnabruek, Germany, and the Images Festival in Toronto, Canada. My video work is distributed through Video Out Distribution in Vancouver, Canada as well as openly and freely on the web.

T0p 5 by Nick Briz:

Over the summer I taught a video remix class at Marwen (here in Chicago) for middle school students. The class served as an introduction to video editing (non of these students had any kind of serious prior editing experience) as well as an introduction to remix based work, theory and politics. I was extremely surprised how in depth we were able to discuss critical theory (a subject usually reserved for college level students) and digital policy. By the end of the course every student was producing critical, technically proficient, and occasionally hilarious remix videos, and most could explain to you in serious detail their fair-use rights and how best to navigate intellectual property issues on the web. I was extremely proud of the work they produced in class, and while I think you should check out all their videos here, I’ve forced myself to choose only five for DINCA’s t0p5. I think these exemplify their various projects + perspectives fairly well. Enjoy ’em (and keep in mind these videos where made by 11 – 13 year olds!) — N.B.

Support for this project was provided by The Propeller Fund, a joint administrated grant from Threewalls and Gallery 400 at The University of Illinois at Chicago. Initial support for the program is provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation For The Visual Arts as part of its initiative to promote informal and independently organized visual arts activities across the United States.